Iraqi Forces Kill ‘ISIS Slaughterer’ in Anbar Desert

Iraqi forces in the Anbar province in September 2017. (AFP)
Iraqi forces in the Anbar province in September 2017. (AFP)
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Iraqi Forces Kill ‘ISIS Slaughterer’ in Anbar Desert

Iraqi forces in the Anbar province in September 2017. (AFP)
Iraqi forces in the Anbar province in September 2017. (AFP)

Iraqi forces announced on Sunday that they killed Abou Taha al-Tunsi, also known as the “ISIS Slaughterer,” one of the terror group’s most notorious members.

The terrorist and nine of his companions were killed in a security operation in Iraq’s Anbar province, revealed intelligence sources.

The operation was initially launched after information was received that the terrorists were in the area and they were preparing to carry out attacks against security forces, they added.

The forces discovered during their raid secret tunnels that the group was using in the Anbar desert. There, they confiscated weapons, narcotic pills and liquor.

The operation in Anbar is part of a larger operation the armed forces are carrying out in the desert, where hundreds of ISIS members are still located.

Head of the Iraq Sahwa Conference Sheikh Ahmed Abou Risha told Asharq Al-Awsat that in wake of battles to liberate areas that were seized by ISIS in 2014, the terrorists chose to flee instead of fighting the incoming forces.

They consequently fled to the desert, he explained, where they remain.

“ISIS used to fiercely fight in regions it could not escape from,” he added.

The Anbar desert is vast and it still feeds several other regions with ISIS cells that are carrying out various attacks using new methods, such as ambushes, said Abou Risha.

Iraqi security expert Abou Fadel Raghif told Asharq Al-Awsat that regardless of Abou Taha al-Tunsi’s death, “the truth is clear that 95 percent of the major ISIS leaderships have not engaged in battle, but chose to hide in various regions, including beyond Iraq.”

“None of these figures have been arrested,” he stressed.



Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
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Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a "live-streamed genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with "specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide".

Israel has rejected accusations of "genocide" from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.

The conflict erupted after the Palestinian group Hamas's deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Hamas also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground operation that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,243 dead.

"Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide," Amnesty's secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.

"States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools," she added.

'Extreme levels of suffering'

Gaza's civil defense agency said early Tuesday that four people were killed and others injured in an Israeli air strike on displaced persons' tents near the Al-Iqleem area in Southern Gaza.

The agency earlier warned fuel shortages meant it had been forced to suspend eight out of 12 emergency vehicles in Southern Gaza, including ambulances.

The lack of fuel "threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelter centers," it said in a statement.

Amnesty's report said the Israeli campaign had left most of the Palestinians of Gaza "displaced, homeless, hungry, at risk of life-threatening diseases and unable to access medical care, power or clean water".

Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had "documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks".

It said Israel's actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 percent of Gaza's population, and "deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe".

Even as protesters hit the streets in Western capitals, "the world's governments individually and multilaterally failed repeatedly to take meaningful action to end the atrocities and were slow even in calling for a ceasefire".

Meanwhile, Amnesty also sounded alarm over Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, and repeated an accusation that Israel was employing a system of "apartheid".

"Israel's system of apartheid became increasingly violent in the occupied West Bank, marked by a sharp increase in unlawful killings and state-backed attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians," it said.

Heba Morayef, Amnesty director for the Middle East and North Africa region, denounced "the extreme levels of suffering that Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to endure on a daily basis over the past year" as well as "the world's complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it".